Obviously, having your air miles expire is horrible but there is little that we can do to change that. The 2nd option Cash Rewards is that something that everyone CAN and SHOULD AVOID!

Briefly, AirMiles has split what use to be just Air Miles into two systems: Cash Rewards and Dream Rewards. Dream Rewards are what everyone was and is collecting by default. Cash Rewards, the new system, are accumulated at the same rate as regular airmiles. The only differences is that once you have 95 air miles you can trade these in at participating merchants for $10.

This means that each "Air Mile" using the cash rewards option is now worth $9.50. However, if you use your Airmiles for a gift card you will spend your air miles at a rate of $8.25 (or less). This is a 20% mark-up by cashing your airmiles in directly at a merchant. This is a HORRIBLE way to use your airmiles.

What can I do to stop this?
Obviously, we recommend that you don't collect the Air Miles Cash Rewards. The 'regular' airmiles are collected by default so if you have done nothing you are good. If you've changed your account to start collecting 'Cash Rewards' revert back to only collect Dream Rewards asap.

UPDATE ---- February 2nd, 2012
Thanks to Martin who pointed out that they will be phasing out the gift cards from their dream rewards section. This is SAD news, however, I was only using the gift cards as an example. You can still redeem your Air Miles for a MUCH better rate than $10 for 95 Airmiles!

Comments

But once they start using the cash reward feature in March, the gift cards will be dropped.